What does Veeky Forums know about the early church

Post infographics, papyrus fragments, codices, archeological finds, etc.

Pic related, from my studies today.

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_4
jaydinitto.com/new-testament-manuscript-reliability-doesnt-matter/
bible.ca/ef/topical-the-earliest-new-testament-manuscripts.htm
carm.org/manuscript-evidence
christianitydisproved.com/bible.html
amazon.com/Text-New-Testament-Transmission-Restoration/dp/019516122X
ehrmanblog.org/new-testament-manuscripts-good-news-and-bad-news/
visualunit.me/about/
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

Very interesting.
There is this speculation about the bible that arise when I think about the evolution of travel. That is cartography. The interesting part is that Old maps depict the northen half of middle earth (mediterranean) shaped like an open snake's mouth and has a protruding split tongue (italy).

It is historically plausible and accepted that the early Christian church had an oral lore not a written one. But in order to make the Christian religion formal and legally accepted by Rome, it was commissioned to be written down by one of the most hated people in the Christian world. For that matter rumor states if you want the oldest bible. Try to find one without appendages or divisions.

I remember prior to Dubya's presidency the history of oil became a big deal within some history afficionado circles. They called themselves the Brotherhood of Death. Sort of like a Dead Poets Society... Prescott...was an honorary member due to his studies in egyptology and middle eastern religions. They believed that many societies around the world and in particular those near and in the Arab lands used petrol as a sacrificial resin that contained a host at the altar of the temples.
With that said the beings to be sacrificed would be covered in petrol and burned alive. From there they would burn the body until disintegrated and they would roll the bones and tar into a ball. The bones would be grinded. From there that resin ball would be used as a resin within the temples. It encapsulated a host.
It is said historically and politically that monotheistic faiths served a purpose. However the belief in them would always give way back to polytheism, paganism. Monotheistic faith implementation is seen as a conditioning tactic for new laws or governance. As they would always condition people to serve a similar (one) ideal. Now going back to the bible you see moses, abraham...and so forth. It is said those patriarchs lived at times of new laws...

Continued...

And were not necessarily, hebrew or jewish but were the forefathers or founding fathers of the custom. And each of them a leader in their own right, in a more accurate historical portrayal.

In Jesus's time we see that monotheistic belief was low. Catholics often said that Jesus came at a time of mass sacrifice. That is why God send his son to that area. It is noted that the proliferation of jewish sect means there was a religious schism as all did not find accord with a single observance. The inhabitants of the Phillistines in those days were practicing child sacrifices. It is cryptically spoken of in the gnosis. *note people had to speak cryptically so as not to offend the governing body of society. So in ue gnosis Jesus killed a kid by knocking him off the roof. Houses were not that high. In reality that translates to, Jesus thought of as a holier sacrifice, since option A hit ground. Therefore preferred for the ritual slaughter.

The great mystery is that there were a great many writers during the time of Jesus that never wrote about him. The oldest version of Gospel of Mark perhaps written from a first hand witness does not mention a virgin birth nor the resurrection. And calls Jesus son on Mary without mentioning Joseph. So one wonders if the bible was enhanced to include Zoroastrianism ideology including virgin birth, resurrection, holy ghost etc to hide something that was looked upon as shameful at that time. Talmud writings tell that Jesus was the illegitimate son of a Roman Soldier called Tiberius Julius Abdes Panthera and that Jesus escaped to India when his life was threatened.

Have you ever heard of the notion of the messianic secret?

For the longest time, it was thought that one or more of the gospels was written in Hebrew or Aramaic first before being translated into Greek and Latin to hit a wider audience. The oldest copies we have are Greek, and it is a more academically accepted theory now that the earliest copies of the Gospel were written in Greek, not by Christ's followers that the Gospels are named after and traditionally attributed to, but rather by anonymous, usually educated authors.

The prime motives of these educated authors typically being assumed as either A) to strengthen the convictions of early Christendom which was largely diasporic and bickering with itself before Constantine and his council of bishops came in and canonized and standardized or B) to familiarize unconverted Pagans with Judeo-Christian thought, so as to strengthen Christendom by converting Roman and Greek gentry, who were the original persecutors (along with the Jewish Elders) of Christians.

By the way, the old papyrus fragments we have aren't dated based on radiocarbon dating, etc. like the Shroud of Turin is, but dated due to historical considerations, such as style of text, handwriting, etc. and are more speculative dates than say, a scientist would like.

For all we know, the estimated ranges could be wildly inaccurate. This explains the inconsistent ranges and numbers of estimates.

The study of Christian history was largely the domain of Christians exclusively for the longest time. Secular histories of Christ are relatively a new endeavor, traceable to the enlightenment.

Pic is Papyrus 66, our earliest copy of the apocalyptic Gospel of John, which is noticeably more hostile in its treatment of the Jewish elders than the other gospels, was likely written later than the other Gospels, and contains the controversial Book of Revelation which fully describes a supernatural apocalypse and its theological consequences.

cont.
That John Fragment is relatively completely compared to the earliest fragments we have of other Gospels.

Take for instance this P4 fragment we have of Luke. It is the earliest luke, if I'm not mistaken, and also the source of our earliest title header for the book of matthew (but not much text).

It is presumed to be late 2nd century or 3rd century CE.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_4

As for early "secular" sources, the closest we have to such a thing is Josephus, whose full name was Titus Flavius Josephus. He was born Joseph Son of Matthew, or Yosef ben Matityahu, as you would say it in Hebrew.

He was Romano-Jewish.

I hear Christians today get in arguments of a vaguely racial/cultural dimension over who was Christ's bigger enemy: Romans or Jews. This guy was both.

He fought the Romans as a Jew, lost, surrendered, became an interpreter to Vespasian. He was eventually freed and took up a Jewish name.

His perspective was allegedly that Jesus was a wise teacher who was crucified by Pilate. This is called the Testimonium Flavianum. The general scholarly view is that while the Testimonium Flavianum is most likely not authentic in its entirety, it is broadly agreed upon that it originally consisted of an authentic nucleus, which was then subject to Christian expansion/alteration.

One of the reasons the works of Josephus were copied and maintained by Christians was that his writings provided a good deal of information about a number of figures mentioned in the New Testament, and the background to events such as the death of James during a gap in Roman governing authority. Because manuscript transmission was done by hand-copying, typically by monastic scribes, almost all ancient texts have been subject to both accidental and deliberate alterations, emendations (called interpolation) or elisions. Both the lack of any original corroborating manuscript source outside the Christian tradition as well as the practice of Christian interpolation has led to the scholarly debate regarding the authenticity of Josephus' references to Jesus in his work. Although there is no doubt that most (but not all) of the later copies of the Antiquities contained references to Jesus and John the Baptist, it cannot be definitively shown that these were original to Josephus writings.

We do not have an original Josephus Manuscript.

>eventually freed and took up a Latin* name.

See how easy it is to say the wrong thing on accident? And I have the benefit of modern technology and backspacing. Early manuscript copiers didn't. Their political motivations are arguably biased in almost all situations. The standards of modern scholarship didn't exist. Christ was esoteric until the 2nd century, at the earliest, and ink and paper were expensive enough that an individual might let a misprint or two slip through.

These are three of our Earliest artworks of Christ. One depicting him as shepherd, one vulgar graffito, and one traditional Pantokrator-like image, the earliest we know of that depicts him with facial hair, dating iirc two centuries after his death, but don't quote me on that.

Anyone got anything interesting on non-canonoical Gospels like Thomas and Peter?

Some say the Gospel of Thomas is part of a proto-gnostic oral tradition that got copied down very early (40AD at the earliest) and added to.

A common characteristic of some of these groups was the instruction that the realisation of Gnosis (esoteric or intuitive knowledge) is the way to salvation of the soul from the material world. Gnostic systems, particularly the Syrian-Egyptian schools, are typically marked by:

A)The notion of a remote, supreme monadic divinity
B)The introduction by emanation of further divine beings known as Aeons.
C)The introduction of a distinct creator god or demiurge, which is an illusion and a later emanation from the single monad or source, which is presumably non-material and/or void, as in Eastern thought.
D)The estimation of the world, owing to the above, as an "error" or flawed simulacrum of a higher-level reality, but possibly as good as its constituent material might allow. Something resembling modern theoretical physics here...
D)A complex mythological-cosmological drama in which a divine element "falls" into the material realm and lodges itself within certain human beings
E)A doctrine of salvation in which the divine element may be returned to the divine realm through a process of awakening.

A difficulty with Gnostic schools of thought is that they put less emphasis on political urgency, apocalypse, and conflict with Rome, and instead focus on esoteric ideology that neither rally nor compel the masses, instead playing to a highly-educated niche audience. Also, if salvation depends on esoteric knowledge, then what of those who are not afforded the opportunity of education, or are mentally retarded? This is the reason, possibly, for Gnosticism never catching on, in addition to the basic contention, put forward by early church Dogmatists, that Gnosticism was heresy.

This bit in particular from the Gospel of Thomas hints at a Messianic Secret.

Why are people posting in the bait thread about "cuckolicks" but not this actually interesting and scholarly historical thread?

I am becoming sad and lonely. I need incentive to post more things. Are there any Christians here that wish not to be divorced from the origins of their tradition?

Are there any non-Christians interested in the history of the Early church, and its historical context?

Come on, guys...

We also have to mention Tacitus. The fact that one of the first Roman historians to mention Jesus was in the beginning of the second century, and it was because the author had to explain to the reader who the Christians, blamed for the burning of Rome by Nero, were. I find that fascinating and curious, how this very, very important in the modern world event was so unknown back then.

Nero blamed the Christians. The Christians blame Nero. What an interesting ideological predicament.

Do you know if there's a consenus?

Did Tacitus have bias primarily against Christians?

...

Nero had a reputation for being capricious and tyrannical so he seems to be a more likely arsonist than followers of an irrelevant Jewish sect but I'm sure there are those who will trust Nero's story regardless.

> copyright Mark Barry 2010

Who is this Mark Barry fellow? Is he a historian? Is he Clergy? I am having difficulty finding info about him. There are a few Christian sites that mention him in passing, including this passage of dubious reliability (pic).

jaydinitto.com/new-testament-manuscript-reliability-doesnt-matter/

I don't know whether historians have agreed on a certain reason for the fire. I don't think Tacitus had anything against the Christians. From what I gathered, I think he has tried to present this information as neutral as possible.

Knowing Nero had plans to build his Domus Aurea on both Palatinus and Esquilinus and the area between them, which was densely built, I'm inclined to believe it was he, who set Rome on fire. He even had a fake lake built in the centre of Rome. And he did all this intentionally. Just look at him.

Ah, thank you.

Regarding my Tacitus question, I found indication that he not only thought himself more educated on them than most of the Roman population, but also didn't like them, in his own words (pic).

He actually called Christianity a "most mischievous superstition" if I am correctly interpreting this modern English translation of his Latin words. I might be misunderstanding that though, the sentence is kinda run-on and wonky.

I've been reading a lot about Christianity but I'm still on mount stupid probably.

Can I be mean and ask for historical scholarly sources on these claims? I did a lot of research on these posts I've made, and this post resembles a lot of the things I see on Zeitgeist-type videos on youtube, and I just wanna be sure you've done the hard reading.

Thanks in advance, my brother.

I don't know who Mr. Barry is but I do know the proliferation of Biblical manuscripts is undisputed:

>Taking all languages together, over 25,000 handwritten copies of the New Testament have been recovered. But there is more. Almost the entire New Testament could be reproduced by quotes from the ancient church fathers. “So extensive are these citations that if all other sources for our knowledge of the text of the New Testament were destroyed, they would be sufficient alone for the reconstruction of practically the entire New Testament” (Metzger & Ehrman, 2005).

bible.ca/ef/topical-the-earliest-new-testament-manuscripts.htm

And in terms of Greek manuscripts, there are over five thousand:

carm.org/manuscript-evidence

great work op. I have nothing to contribute other than remarking on my interest in non—cannon things like peter/thomas that you mentioned.

If anything my world view could be roughly jammed into a gnostic description, so those are relavent to my interests, and also any general light on such a huge modern idea as judeo—christendom is welcome.

Cheers

You are correct it seems. I just think in this particular paragraph Tacitus does not twist information to hurt the image of Christians.

I, too, started reading up on early Christianity this year, mainly because I have a course on Late Antiquity in Uni, and the christianization is basically the definition of the period. One of my lectors recommended I read Bart Ehrman's Lost Christianities and Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why.

Running that text in quotes through google, I have difficulty finding it outside of a facebook page of Christian slant, and a few Christian websites. I am looking for the actual 2005 paper, do you have a link to that? I want to make sure that Metzger and Eherman aren't being taken out of context. For example, I found this quote on a website of secular slant also attributed to the same two gentlemen, in the same year:

>“The manuscripts of the New Testament preserve traces of two kinds of dogmatic alteration: those that involve the elimination or alteration of what was regarded as doctrinally unacceptable or inconvenient and those that introduce into the Scriptures “proof” for a favorite theological tenet or practice.” (Metzger & Ehrman, 2005, p. 266)
christianitydisproved.com/bible.html

This guy even quotes a page number. Hmm...

This is naturally troubling for someone looking for neturality. Between your quote and this guy's quote, I want to know what Metzger and Ehrman actually think.

Sorry for your trouble.

Never mind I think both quote refer to this text:

amazon.com/Text-New-Testament-Transmission-Restoration/dp/019516122X


Interesting title. "Corruption" and "restoration" both carry a lot of weight. I'd love to read, but I'm in no hurry to drop cash $$$.

I usually stick to research papers. I wonder what papers the text cites...

Thanks for the rec reading. Another guy ITT just quoted Ehrman. The incentive to read Ehrman is stacking up.

>The good news: We have more manuscripts for the New Testament than for any other book from the ancient world—many, many more manuscripts than we have for the writings of Homer, Plato, Cicero, or any other important author. We have something like 5,700 manuscripts of the New Testament

ehrmanblog.org/new-testament-manuscripts-good-news-and-bad-news/

Again he's referring to just the Greek manuscripts and does go on to question their reliability in typical Ehrman fashion.

No problem. I wish you luck and all the best.

>ehrmanblog.org/new-testament-manuscripts-good-news-and-bad-news/

Thanks user, you're a champ.

Let's keep this thread tight.

God bless.

Going offline folks.

Here's a crop of the thread in case it dies or doesn't get archived or anyone's interested.

I get thread crops using a chrome plugin called "full page screen capture." if anyone's curious.

Daily Reminder that Bart Ehrman is a money hungry atheist feeding Christian skeptics garbage tier textual criticism.

Grace and peace,

Mark Barry

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Like visualunit on facebook

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OP post doesn't source Ehrman. Please reply to the people sourcing Ehrman. Otherwise it implies OP is sourcing Ehrman and creates confusion. Also keep this thread scholarly and free of "daily reminder" type posts and value judgments.

Also, though your post sounds significantly more biased than scholarly works, who would you recommend? Are they scholarly works? What century? Are they clergy?

These are more important questions than your feelings about Ehrman.

If skepticism happens to be the conclusion Ehrman comes to, the important question is whether it is from his scholarship, or in spite of his scholarship. Another important question is whether he was always of that camp or whether he became of that camp.

Please, state facts, and hesitate judgement. Thanks in advance.